“I see the United States rise in all their ripened glory before me,” he said.  “I look through and beyond every yet peopled region of the New World, and behold period still brightening upon period.  Where one contiguous depth of gloomy wilderness now shuts out even the beams of day, I see new States and empires, new seats of wisdom and knowledge, new religious domes spreading around.  In places now untrod by any but savage beasts, or men as savage as they, I hear the voices of happy labor, and see beautiful cities rising to view.  I behold the whole continent highly cultivated and fertilized, full of cities, towns and villages, beautiful and lovely beyond expression.  I hear the praises of my great Creator sung upon the banks of those rivers now unknown to song.  Behold the delightful prospect!  See the silver and gold of America employed in the service of the Lord of the whole earth!  See slavery, with all its train of attendant evils, forever abolished!  See a communication opened through the whole continent, from North to South and from East to West, through a most fruitful country.  Behold the glory of God extending, and the gospel spreading through the whole land!”

Of course, it was easy for a man to see and to hope and to say all this; but it is a little curious, is it not, that he should have seen things just as they have turned out?

In Mr. Winchester’s day, the United States of America had not quite four millions of inhabitants.  In his day Virginia was the largest State—­in the matter of population—­Pennsylvania was the second and New York the third.  Philadelphia was the greatest city, then followed New York, Boston, Baltimore and Charleston.  Chicago was not even thought of.

To-day, four hundred years after Columbus first saw American shores, one hundred and sixteen years after the United States were started in life by the Declaration of American Independence, these same struggling States of one hundred years ago are joined together to make the greatest and most prosperous nation in the world.  With a population of more than sixty-two millions of people; with the thirteen original States grown into forty-four, with the population of its three largest cities—­New York; Philadelphia and Chicago—­more than equal to the population of the whole country one hundred years ago; with schools and colleges and happy homes brightening the whole broad land that now stretches from ocean to ocean, the United States leads all other countries in the vast continent Columbus discovered.  Still westward, as Columbus led, the nation advances; and, in a great city that Columbus could never have imagined, and that the prophet of one hundred years ago scarcely dreamed of, the mighty Republic in 1892 invited all the rest of the world to join with it in celebrating the four hundredth anniversary of the Discovery of America by Columbus the Admiral.  And to do this celebrating fittingly and grandly, it built up the splendid White City by the great Fresh Water Sea.